It All Began With Ollie North

I shouldn’t have weighed in at all on Rittenhouse. Back to that in a bit.

It was then as it is now — I have no tribe. The T-shirts and fanaticism around Oliver North vividly remain in my memory. I had no particular feelings about Reagan one way or the other, I just know blind loyalty when I see it.

Not for any amount of gain would I ever become like that.

It was then as it is now

As I wrote on The Yellow Brick Road:

When it comes to ascertaining the truth, I don’t care what your cause is, who’s in the White House, who controls Congress or the courts.

I learned early on in life that what you want gets in the way of what you see.

To a minor degree, what I want got in the way I what little I knew on Rittenhouse. I had a sense of the situation — and retain some of that sentiment.

But when I decided to take a look-see, what I want vanished in the face of what was right in front of me:

I can’t offer an informed opinion on the matter, but just from the video alone — I don’t know what the Left is looking at.

And they don’t either

Like the Right, they carry baggage into every issue — so the next outrage is just another vehicle to further an agenda.

Black Lives Matter with the first black president sitting in the White House!? . . .

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For a party that prides itself on intellectualism — shouldn’t that include examining the efficacy of your efforts?

You’ve institutionalized weakness — and the Democratic Party is notorious for lacking backbone.

You are utterly oblivious to the fact that you are weakening the very people you’re trying to strengthen.

branding weakness to boot

And right on cue, the Right kicks the shit out of you for it. I don’t blame ’em — except for the part about them being weak while branding strength.

Republicans have a knack for forever sailing Scot-Free — but by playing into their hands every time, what do you expect?

This horseshit put Trump over the edge in 2016

An abomination of a human being and a man-child moron for the ages — and you helped put him there with stupidity like this:

In our culture of instant offense, we ban before we think. However, banning isn’t a sign of strength or resolve, but an admission of defeat, of showing how little we have engaged with whatever the bigger issue that belies the ban.

Instead of asking or addressing the roots of violent racism in the South in 2015 — far too difficult, far too intimidating — we focus on symbols. If we take a flag down, if we remove a TV show from the schedules, it shows we are doing something. It shows our hearts are in the right places.

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Elaine’s exasperation x 100 = how impossibly stupid it is that they banned The Dukes of Hazzard.

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The ban is bad enough by itself — but it’s beyond belief that you don’t grasp what comes with it.

Nice work . . .

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If the Right were the bastion of virtue it believes itself to be, this poem would not exist, nor would Mentality of a Mob, Mariana Trench of Mendacity, Call Sign “Maverick” and so on throughout this site.

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And I wouldn’t have needed to do this documentary.

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For the Right, you may be on the side of evidence this time around, but I stand with the truth, not you.

Anytime the facts don’t fit your formula, you show nothing but contempt for the truth and anyone who tries to tell it to you.

Of all those in that crowd that I’ve challenged on Iraq WMD — your knowledge combined could fit into a thimble with space to spare.

And then you worship professional know-it-alls who don’t know jack shit about what they’re talking about either.

But hey, he’s written a bunch of books on economics, race, and whatnot — so naturally he’s qualified to speak on nuclear materials.

Never mind that he never addressed the evidence

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You’ve put on a masterclass of complaining for 30 years — and then have the bottomless nerve to call liberals snowflakes. I don’t dispute your outlook on their ludicrous ways — I take issue with your shameless hypocrisy and childish insults.

They are not aware when life asks them a question . . .

For the #NeverTrump Republicans, you put that POS in office from decades of dishonesty and systematic self-delusion — but take no responsibility for it.

That goes for the Left too

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There’s no willingness to say, “I’m wrong.” I mean, you have to take a 2×4 to these people, basically — to get ’em to, sorta, knock ’em down and admit they were wrong.

That physicist was talking about the people pushing the aluminum tubes fantasy that took us to war in Iraq . . .

And I’m talking about you

You all play the same goddamn games every day — ceaselessly jockeying for the upper hand.

If you weren’t so busy bitching about the opposition — you might learn something from each other for a change. And who knows, you might look around and take notice of how your ways never work out well in the long run.

As my videographer perfectly put it

We finally figured out what we were doing by the end

If we don’t change course as a country — we won’t.

What Is Truth

A young man sittin’ on the witness stand
The man with the book says “Raise your hand”
“Repeat after me, I solemnly swear”
The man looked down at his long hair
And although the young man solemnly swore
Nobody seemed to hear anymore
And it didn’t really matter if the truth was there
It was the cut of his clothes and the length of his hair

And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains . . .

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence . . .

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

Fools, said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

Your way

The American Way . . .

I come from a different place. A different time. A different way of life.